Gallup

Gallup is a polling and research organization whose surveys and staff economists are cited by guests across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show. The episodes never treat Gallup as the subject of an episode; instead, its polls and personnel appear as evidence within arguments about media influence, drug policy, immigration, inequality and independent contracting.

Polling on homosexuality and television

In a discussion of Hollywood’s influence on public perception, Ben Shapiro cited a Gallup poll conducted about two months before the episode, which showed that 34% of Americans thought at least one out of every four Americans was gay, and that 78% thought at least 10% of the population was gay. Shapiro said every even mildly reliable statistic put the number somewhere between 2 and 5%, and attributed the disparity to the prevalence of gay characters on network television Hollywood: Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda (2011).

Marijuana legalization

Gary Johnson, discussing drug policy as a health issue, said that three months earlier a Gallup poll had shown that 50% of Americans now supported legalizing marijuana. He attributed the shift to more people talking about the issue and understanding it as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue The Triumph of Principle Over Politics (2012).

Immigration and views of government

Fergus Hodgson, discussing immigration and the welfare state, said there was data from Gallup, and that Reason had recently published data, showing that when people are asked whether government should do less or more to help people, Latin Americans are almost twice as likely as their native US counterparts to call for bigger government. He described this as a great problem and connected it to the growth of the US welfare state attracting a different demographic of immigrants Venezuela on the Brink with Fergus Hodgson (2017).

Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup principal economist

Bob Zadek introduced Jonathan Rothwell as Gallup’s principal economist, an economist by training who had lived his life in politics and public policy and was the author of A Republic of Equals: A Manifesto for a Just Society Jonathan Rothwell on Market Egalitarianism (2019). Rothwell said he had been studying the topic for probably 20 years, became most interested around the 2000 election while an undergraduate studying mostly science, and that the election and the campaign of Ralph Nader motivated him to study economics. He said he worked at the Brookings Institution in DC for seven years and had been at Gallup since then.

On inequality, Rothwell said it was perfectly natural that there would be some income inequality, but that the United States stands out among other democracies as having an extreme amount. He said poor countries with authoritarian or corrupt governments have the richest 1% controlling 20% to 30% of income in a given year; European democracies and countries like Japan and Korea more like 6% to 12% or 13%, usually under 10%; and in the United States 20%, closer to authoritarian governments than to other developed countries.

Independent contractors

Kim Kavin, campaigning against worker classification legislation, said that in every serious study they could find—from the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, ADP Research, Intuit, and Gallup, released up until a couple months before COVID hit—70 to 80% of independent contractors routinely say they want to stay independent contractors. She said the most recent Gallup study found independent contractors were actually happier working in just one field than someone with a traditional job in just one field Terrible New Worker “Protection” Laws Threaten the Gig Economy (2020).

Across episodes: the uses of Gallup

Gallup appears in five episodes spanning 2011 to 2020, but the episodes show no development in how the organization is treated: in each case a guest cites Gallup data in support of an argument the guest is already making—Shapiro on media influence, Johnson on marijuana legalization, Hodgson on immigration and government attitudes, Rothwell on inequality, and Kavin on independent contracting. The only episode in which a Gallup figure speaks is the Rothwell interview, where he appears as the author of a book rather than as a representative of the organization.